Lacrosse

32- Late and Hate

Josh

After the final bell of the day releases us from our seventh period class, I return to my Algebra II classroom to serve my hour long detention.

"Do I really have to be here? I'm going to miss part of practice and Coach is already going to kill me," I mutter as I walk into the room that is empty except for my teacher, Ms. Bosh, and me.

"Sit down and keep quiet and I'll only keep you for thirty minutes instead of a full hour," she replies, smiling in an attempt to look sweet. Ms. Bosh is an older lady, at least sixty years old, with a sunken face covered in wrinkles and wiry gray hair. She looks much older than she actually is, appearing to be seventy seven instead of fifty seven.

I sit down in the row nearest her desk, two seats back.

I'm freaked out about having to go to practice late. Scott is already ticked off at the fact that I started that fight on Saturday and I don't want to face him because of that. Now that I'm late because of a detention, he's definitely going to kill me.

I look up at the clock, hoping to see that time is almost up, but I still have twenty minutes to go, so my mind wanders back to practice.

I'm going to have to face Kendall too. I want to see her and explain what happened to her, but she won't believe me. She saw what she saw. If I was in her place, I wouldn't believe me either.

I look back up at the clock. Fifteen minutes to go.

Kendall. I ruined everything. Even if Kimmy hadn't shown up at the bleachers, things with Kendall wouldn't have been the same. I had screwed up before that too. I didn't mean to hurt her by kissing her. I wasn't thinking. It was just that my mom was being her usual self and I wanted to hurt her, not Kendall.

My mom hasn't always been like this. She used to be the kind of lady that everyone loved. She gave and expected nothing in return. She loved with her whole heart and would do anything to protect the people she cared about, which was once everyone.
Maybe that's what she truly thinks she is doing. Maybe she actually believes that by trying to break Kendall and me up, she is protecting me from heartbreak.

That's not true though. She set me up for heartbreak.

"Josh," Ms. Bosh says, "you can go now."

"Thank you," I mumble, standing up and leaving the classroom.

*****

"Nice of you to grace us with your presence Thompson," Coach Scott announces from behind the goal as I run up, dressed and ready in all my padding, but still nearly forty five minutes late.

"I had detention," I explain, getting in to the line of players waiting to start whatever drill it is that we're doing.

"What for?" Coach asks.

I say, "Late to class." Coach nods his head and instructs the player at the front of the line to start.

It takes me a while figure out what we're doing without anyone telling me. It would've been easier to ask someone instead of watch everyone run and try to decipher it myself, but I don't feel like talking to anyone. I have nothing to say.

I get to the front of the line and start moving through the technical footwork that the drill requires. I make my way through the ladder laid across the ground, one foot forward, then the next, then one back, then the other back, then jump two rungs forward. Repeat until I reach the end. Once finishing the ladder, a series of cones are aligned in a zig-zag formation. I run to one cone and do a roll dodge, switching hands partway through the turn. Then I go to the next cone on the other side, repeating the roll, until I reach the end.